The danger of the nuclear weapons proliferation in the contemporary world has increased, former Soviet president says

AMSTERDAM, June7. /TASS/. The danger of the nuclear weapons proliferation in the contemporary world has increased, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said on Tuesday.

The last Soviet leader made this statement in a video address to the conference of the international Luxembourg forum titled: "Reykjavik: 30 Years After - Lessons of the Past and Tasks for the Immediate Future."

"New types of nuclear weapons are being created and their qualitative characteristics are being built up. Missile shield systems are being deployed. Work is under way to develop quick non-nuclear response capabilities comparable by their danger with mass destruction weapons," Gorbachev said.

"We can see with our own eyes that the window into the nuclear-free world half-opened in Reykjavik is being shut and battened down," the last Soviet leader said.

In the opinion of the former USSR president, the doctrines of the nuclear powers "have changed for the worse and they are expanding the limits of the admissibility of using nuclear weapons."

"It is largely for this reason that the danger of the nuclear weapons proliferation has increased," Gorbachev said.

The summit of Soviet and US leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik in October 1986 is considered as a landmark event in the process of Soviet-US negotiations on strategic offensive arms.

The Soviet Union made specific proposals on cutting all the components of the triad of strategic offensive arms on condition that both sides would give up extending the arms race to outer space. However, no documents were signed at this summit over the US side’s disagreement with this condition.